The Burning of The Piping Rock
Book Details
Author(s)Joseph Cutshall-King
PublisherMatchless Books
ISBN / ASINB007QV0U2O
ISBN-13978B007QV0U29
MarketplaceFrance 🇫🇷
Description
"The Burning of The Piping Rock" is a “film noir in a book†based on the unsolved arson of the mafia-owned Piping Rock Casino in Saratoga Springs, NY in 1954. The historical mystery centers on the taped confession of a dying man, George A. King, a small-town pharmacist who reveals how he had been blackmailed into helping arsonist “Harry the Torch†burn the casino. King’s son discovers the tapes years later and transcribes the horrifying confession of deception, blackmail and death that implicates the mob, Saratoga’s political machine and the social elite of North Shore Long Island’s famed “Gold Coast.â€
Piping Rock Casino was a vital part of Saratoga Springs’s mix of horse racing, illegal gambling, high society, and the mob. Stars of Broadway and Hollywood performed at Piping Rock, while millions changed hands over the gaming tables. The casino was fronted by mobsters Joe Adonis, Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, whose “silent partners†were from the Oyster Bay/Locust Valley area of Long Island’s Gold Coast—the original location of the “Piping Rock†name.
The 1949-51 U.S. Senate war on organized crime focused on American crime centers such as New York, Chicago, Miami and Saratoga Springs, and on Piping Rock’s “visible†mafia owners. Saratoga Springs’’ gambling heyday ended. Piping Rock Casino was abandoned and seized for back taxes.
King’s confession describes the night of August 16, 1954, when he and the arsonist raced to burn Piping Rock Casino. As the dying man talks, the reader hears of the Saratoga political machine run by King’s old boss, how it serviced the mob in Saratoga, and King’s involvement in that. Urgent questions arise and secrets are unraveled. Why are they racing to burn an uninsured, defunct casino? Why is he blackmailing King into helping him? What are the connections between the racing citadel of Saratoga Springs and North Shore Long Island? What are the arsonist’s connections between the two?
"The Burning of The Piping Rock" explores the lives of two men from very different backgrounds, whose lives have been shaped and misshaped by the Great Depression and World War II—and Saratoga Springs. Bound together by arson, as their ride ends at Piping Rock they discover too late who are the deceivers and who are the deceived.
Piping Rock Casino was a vital part of Saratoga Springs’s mix of horse racing, illegal gambling, high society, and the mob. Stars of Broadway and Hollywood performed at Piping Rock, while millions changed hands over the gaming tables. The casino was fronted by mobsters Joe Adonis, Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, whose “silent partners†were from the Oyster Bay/Locust Valley area of Long Island’s Gold Coast—the original location of the “Piping Rock†name.
The 1949-51 U.S. Senate war on organized crime focused on American crime centers such as New York, Chicago, Miami and Saratoga Springs, and on Piping Rock’s “visible†mafia owners. Saratoga Springs’’ gambling heyday ended. Piping Rock Casino was abandoned and seized for back taxes.
King’s confession describes the night of August 16, 1954, when he and the arsonist raced to burn Piping Rock Casino. As the dying man talks, the reader hears of the Saratoga political machine run by King’s old boss, how it serviced the mob in Saratoga, and King’s involvement in that. Urgent questions arise and secrets are unraveled. Why are they racing to burn an uninsured, defunct casino? Why is he blackmailing King into helping him? What are the connections between the racing citadel of Saratoga Springs and North Shore Long Island? What are the arsonist’s connections between the two?
"The Burning of The Piping Rock" explores the lives of two men from very different backgrounds, whose lives have been shaped and misshaped by the Great Depression and World War II—and Saratoga Springs. Bound together by arson, as their ride ends at Piping Rock they discover too late who are the deceivers and who are the deceived.
